Lost 3 birds last night

I was ill yesterday. Have a cold and had vertigo on and off all day. Made it out to the coop in the evening to collect eggs. Lost my balance leaving the pen and broke several eggs. Was thinking well enough to toss the broken eggs so that they wouldn't be near the pen and attract some predator. Made it back into the house with a combination of crawling and holding onto things. When the roommate got home an hour later I asked him to lock up the birds as I hadn't been able to do that. He went out but the birds were out and didn't come when he called them so he said he'd do it later. He came home after midnight and locked up.

This morning I went outside to give treats to the girls. While I sat in a chair I noticed the rooster and a couple hens weren't there. Hoped they were in the coop. No such luck. This afternoon I got onto the golf cart and drove around the property. Found my poor Elvis, my beautiful Salmon Faverolles rooster with no head. No sign of the 2 missing girls.

All it took was a few hours of not having them locked up securely behind that electric poultry netting to lose them. I am feeling so guilty. I hate feeling so useless and weak. There are times I hate getting older.

I was ill yesterday. Have a cold and had vertigo on and off all day. Made it out to the coop in the evening to collect eggs. Lost my balance leaving the pen and broke several eggs. Was thinking well enough to toss the broken eggs so that they wouldn't be near the pen and attract some predator. Made it back into the house with a combination of crawling and holding onto things. When the roommate got home an hour later I asked him to lock up the birds as I hadn't been able to do that. He went out but the birds were out and didn't come when he called them so he said he'd do it later. He came home after midnight and locked up.

This morning I went outside to give treats to the girls. While I sat in a chair I noticed the rooster and a couple hens weren't there. Hoped they were in the coop. No such luck. This afternoon I got onto the golf cart and drove around the property. Found my poor Elvis, my beautiful Salmon Faverolles rooster with no head. No sign of the 2 missing girls.

All it took was a few hours of not having them locked up securely behind that electric poultry netting to lose them. I am feeling so guilty. I hate feeling so useless and weak. There are times I hate getting older.

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Please don't blame yourself, we do the best we can. I lost 2 hens to egg binding last summer because I was too weak from chemotherapy to provide the supportive care that might have gotten them thru it. I hate getting older too!

So sorry! It's happened to all of us one time or another. Chickens are on everyone's dinner menu, and total security means no free ranging ever. My birds free range, and we do our best to protect them, but bad things happen sometimes. Please start over! Mary

Could you invest in a solar door or something similar? My place went to heck in a hand basket last year because of medication-induced brain fog. I couldn't even get out of bed most days. But, I managed to train the birds by tossing feed in the coop as a reward and while we couldn't invest in a solar door, I made that a priority, even setting alarms on my phone to make sure it happened. Probably not something you want to hear, but a walker sounds like it could be helpful. The small investment now, could pay off in spades later.

Years ago I visited an older fellow who absolutely loved raising banties. He had mostly mutts but, they were the most beautiful mutts you ever saw! He had some Seabrights and some Seramas. His mutts were my favorite though.

Anyway back to OP's problem. This old guy had a string or wire run all the way from his bedroom window that operated a coop door on a pulley! He used a counter-weight to make it open easier. The coop hadda-be at least 75 feet away! Worked like a charm. The old man didn't walk very well at all. But, he joked about his string-n-pulley. He said "A lazy man can sometimes come up with great ideas". I didn't for one minute believe he was lazy or had ever been lazy!

Unfortunately neither a string to close the pop door or a solar door would have worked in the circumstance that I faced. I do not lock my girls in their coop. I have the whole area surrounded by electric poultry netting. I have never had any predator get by that netting. It was the gate on the netting I couldn't close when I got so dizzy. You have to put the bottom of a pole into a hole. Then you clip that pole into another pole at the top. Then you have to reattach the electricity. I was so dizzy I couldn't stand let alone try to fit a pole into a hole and then play with electricity.